


my heart is yearning, paris is burning

by zombeesknees



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 10:51:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16931901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombeesknees/pseuds/zombeesknees
Summary: First dates and Parisian crepes; a continuation of "the perfect halo of gold hair and lightning" | Written for Challenge 8 at then_theres_us on LJ many moons ago.





	my heart is yearning, paris is burning

He wondered how much she remembered. How much Cassandra had left behind in her head. It had been chaotic, when Cassandra had been jumping from body to body near the end. It was possible that Cassandra had transferred to Chip without leaving anything behind. It was entirely probable that Rose didn’t recall anything.

“Doctor, do you think I’m a chav?”

He stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk. “What? No, no, absolutely not!”

“I mean, some of my clothes _are_ sort of trashy…”

“Rose Tyler, you are _not_ letting a ‘bitchy trampoline’ get to you. You faced down the Dalek Emperor—you are far from a chav.” He took her hand and squeezed. He wanted to say more—that she had been absolutely beautiful in the glow of the Time Vortex, that the way her tongue peeked out from between her teeth when she smiled sent a rush of endorphins through his veins, that no one else’s hand had ever fit his as if made for him to hold (and how was that possible, when his last set of hands had been so much larger and these new hands were so narrow?)—but he swallowed those words. “So… What do you feel like for supper?”

“When in Paris,” Rose said with a grin. 

“Crepes it is!” And off he ran, dragging her along, the umbrella bouncing over them, splashing through the puddles like a hyperactive child.

 

At the restaurant, a giddy air came over them. Maybe it had been splashing through the puddles, but Maturity had abandoned them both. 

The Doctor ordered chocolate crepes for them, with extra sauce, chocolate chips, and whipped cream. Rose opened her mouth to make some motherly comment about eating dessert for dinner, but when he winked at her, she realized she didn’t really care.

And when the plates arrived, carried by a stoic waiter with slicked back hair and a disapproving nose, Rose didn’t bother with her fork and knife. She nonchalantly licked chocolate sauce and whipped cream from her fingertips, outwardly oblivious to the effect this had on the Doctor, who had frozen with a fork halfway to his mouth. 

After dinner—the Doctor’s psychic paper convinced the maitre d’ that he was an ambassador who hardly needed to pay for crepes—they made their way down the boulevard giggling, arms linked, occasionally skipping when the impulse seized them.

Then they passed a shop that was about to close for the night, and the Doctor spied a rather fine bottle of white wine in the window. And then they found themselves sitting under a gas streetlamp on a stone wall by the Seine, drinking the wine from paper cups when it began to drizzle again, and Rose realized her pink shirt had gone quite transparent. And suddenly Maturity had returned.

Rose was sitting cross-legged on the wall. It was the way a child would sit, but there was nothing childish about her profile in the flickering light of the streetlamp, in the way her shirt clung to the peaks and valleys of her chest, in the way her damp hair glowed around her face and the way her cheeks and lips were flushed with wine and laughter.

When she leaned in closer, her hair falling forward, her lips slightly parted, there wasn’t a doubt in his mind. No question to ponder. No hesitancy. 

He bridged the distance in one smooth movement and caught her lips with his, pulling her in closer, burying one hand in her wet hair as the other curled around the curve of her neck. 

She gasped into his mouth, her skin shivering under his hand, and he belatedly realized that he’d somehow released some of the electricity he’d absorbed from the Tower. Sparks glittered in her hair, snapping fiercely in the rain. 

“That,” she murmured, eyelashes brushing against his cheek. “ _That_ was it.”

“What?” His voice was huskier than he expected.

“Our first kiss. That’s the one I’ll always consider our first.”

“What about—” But she didn’t remember that one. He’d taken that memory from her when he’d absorbed the Time Vortex, and how it pained him to know she would never remember that kiss. “…When we were under the Tower?”

“Doesn’t count. I surprised you with that one. You didn’t have time to properly kiss me back.”

“Properly kiss you back, hmm?”

It was a good thing he had such a tight hold on her, because that next one nearly made her fall off the wall. 

 

“Best first date ever,” she said later, when she was combing her hair on the couch as he popped _**Sabrina**_ into the DVD player. “Hands down. I don’t see how anything could ever top tonight.”

“That a challenge, Rose Tyler?” He arched an eyebrow with a _look_ in his eye, and she realized she’d stopped breathing.

“Yeah,” she finally managed to say. “You’ll have to really pull out the big guns next time.”

“I’ve got something in mind already,” he smiled. “D’you like Liverpool? The 1960s? Rock music?”

“Does a chav love Burberry?” And there was that tongue again, peeking from between her teeth, and the Doctor knew he wouldn’t be paying much attention to the movie.


End file.
